2024 - Ongoing
According to Greek mythology it is said that Cupid gave an open rose to Harpocrates, the god of silence, secrets and confidentiality, to bribe him not to disclose the indiscretions of his mother Venus. This is where the Latin phrase sub rosa originates from, keeping Venus’ and the gods’ affairs a secret. “Sint vera vel ficta, taceantur sub rosa dicta,” which translates to: “Whether true or made up, let words spoken under the rose remain secret.”
Sub rosa delves into the nature of secrecy, visualising the transformative effects that occur when secrets are exposed to the public eye. At its core, the work investigates how hidden information — when unveiled — can be understood to also undergo a process of destruction, becoming bruised, distorted, and damaged. It explores the ways in which power structures influence and shape these transformations, often manipulating the visibility and integrity of information for their own ends. Sub Rosa therefore evokes the power inherent in secrecy, illustrating how initially hiding the information and then the act of exposing, erasing, or distorting information itself contains violence. In this sense, Sub Rosa visualises the scars left on information, questioning how power alters, wounds, and sometimes obliterates the original essence of what was once concealed.
The work also highlights the tension between a secret's concealed identity and its public form. It reflects on the inherent duality of a secret: while it remains hidden, it retains its integrity and value — protected and whole — but once brought into the light, it is no longer a cohesive entity. Exposure fractures it, transforming it into a shadow of itself — an image detached from its original meaning. In the process of becoming visible, the secret's value may be diminished, its authenticity distorted, and its identity compromised. As ‘the secret’ enters the public domain, it evolves into a fragmented representation, no longer capable of carrying the weight it once held in its concealed form. Sub Rosa thus considers how secrets, when released into the world, function as symbols of what is erased, manipulated, or even forgotten. The work underscores how information, when subjected to the forces of exposure and power, is no longer just data — it is scarred, fragmented, and often unrecognizable from its original state.